Paideia School Junior High

Paideia School Junior High

Atlanta, Georgia

Long recognized as one of America’s most beautiful neighborhoods, the Franklin Law Olmstead designed Druid Hills Historic District blends stately homes, places of worship and schools with large swaths of parks, greenspace and old growth forest. Along Ponce de Leon Avenue, The Paideia School is one of the neighbor’s most recognized intuitions and a nationally renowned private school.

Breedlove Land Planning, working with Perkins + Will architects, provided master planning, site design and construction administration services for a new Junior High campus. The new academic building was tucked into the rear of the property, preserving and celebrating the existing ‘Jackson Estate’ built at the turn of the 20th century. The site design intentionally mimics a residential scale along the front yard, to blend the school into the residential character of the historic district. The planting palette was greatly influenced by the Druid Hill design standards, utilizing trees, shrubs and groundcovers that Franklin Law Olmstead would have specified. Porous pavers, infiltration trenches and engineered sportfields at the rear of the property work to ensure 1″ of all stormwater runoff on the site is infiltrated into soils, reducing runoff and recharging base flow and aquifers. The result is a performance landscape that is historically appropriate and honors Druid Hills.